Guia da Faculdade uses a methodology known as peer evaluation to analyze the quality of almost 16 thousand higher education programs throughout Brazil. In this process, the Guia team acts as a research institute, collecting the opinion of thousands of professors who work in higher education. All higher education institutions registered with the Ministry of Education are invited to be part of the Faculty Guide. To be considered, they must meet two criteria - have a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree and have at least one cohort of graduates. 

Guia da Faculdade evaluates programs according to the cities in which they are offered. If the same educational institution offers the Business Administration course in several cities, each one of them receives a specific grade. If the institution offers the same programs in different units in the same city, only the institution’s oldest program in that city is evaluated.

The coordinator of each program that is evaluated receives a questionnaire in which they can present the main characteristics, focusing on three aspects: characteristics of the program’s teaching proposal, profile of teachers linked to the program, and conditions of materials and equipment offered. 

There are more than nine thousand coordinators and professors from Brazilian higher education who have registered to act as evaluators of the Guia da Faculdade. The evaluators are asked to grade programs in their areas of training and in institutions primarily located in the same region in which they work. They are asked to give three grades (from 1 to 5) for each program: for the quality of the pedagogical project, for the quality of the teaching staff, and for the quality of infrastructure. 

The numerical result of the course in 2021 is the average of the remaining intermediate grades. The numerical result of 2021 (weight 3) is added to the numerical result of 2020 (weight 2) and the result of 2019 (weight 1) to extract the final numerical result of each course. The final numerical result is transformed into stars according to the following conversion ranges:

• between 5 and 4.50 – 5 stars,
• less than 4.50 to 3.50 – 4 stars,
• less than 3.50 to 2.50 – 3 stars,
• less than 2.50 – not starred.